


"Anthony J." Crowley?

by Problem_Seeker



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Pining, Secret Crush, alcohol mention, crowley makes so many mistakes, the origins of a name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 16:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19299613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Problem_Seeker/pseuds/Problem_Seeker
Summary: Why exactly does Crowley go by "Anthony J"? It was all a cover up, really.***And because this has been brought to my attention this weekend:I, Problem_Seeker, have not given my permission for my work to be posted on any third-party website or app such as Fanfic Pocket Archive Library (Unofficial) or others with a similar business model.





	"Anthony J." Crowley?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally taken from my Tumblr and cleaned up a bit to read more like a story. Enjoy.

### 

"Anthony J." Crowley?

Crowley, for all his faults, knows himself very well. And the one thing he knows — and denies — above all other things is that he is wholly, resentfully, stupidly, and ineffably in love with Aziraphale, former Principality and Guardian of the Eastern Gate of Eden.

He's been smitten for a long time. Every time he and the Angel fight, Crowley is the one who walks away most wounded by it. He knows that Aziraphale can at least console himself with thoughts of The Almighty and righteousness and doing The Right Thing Even When the Right Thing is Bloody Stupid, but Crowley doesn't have the luxury of something similar. Satan wasn't someone you had a casual chat with, and there was no way he'd ever talk to another Demon about trivial things like Feelings. So Crowley was used to waiting and longing and pining and all those other stupid human emotions that somehow crept inside him when he wasn't looking.

(And they always found each other again, he and Aziraphale, even when they pretended it was coincidence. You couldn't know someone as long as they knew each other and not at least attempt to reach out when your orbits drew close.)

But this fight is bad by even their standards. No matter how hard Crowley tried to insist that the holy water was for insurance — "Suicide? Don't be absurd. As if I'd leave you on this rock alone," he wishes he'd said — Aziraphale had refused and exited Crowley's life with nary a backwards glance.

Booze doesn't help and Bad Deeds don't help and torturing plants doesn't help and the only one he could count on to help is the one who isn't interested in helping.

(He tries them all anyway, except the last. Pride won't let him.)

Crowley is fantastically drunk by the time he fills out the paperwork for the Head Office. He fills page after page with blasphemous deeds that he's committed because Aziraphale hadn't been there to thwart him. He broods and grumbles about the hard-headed Angel that wouldn't know flirting if it literally grabbed him by the wings and pulled. Crowley makes himself more upset by the minute, washing down each curse with another full glass of whatever rotgut he can reach.

The problem with filling out paperwork while drunk and upset is that sometimes your hands decide that they're going to do things without bothering to check with the alcohol-soaked slab of meat and electricity that is supposed to be running the show. And sometimes those things are doodling "A+C" in the margins of his reports to the Head Office.

Crowley miracles them off without bothering to proofread. It's not like anyone is paying attention to the reports anyway.

Or so he thinks, right until the moment that Beelzebub calls him in for a meeting.

Crowley is used to operating without much oversight. A visit Downstairs is infrequent enough these days that he's cautious when he steps into Beelzebub's office. When Beelzebub holds out the files in Crowley's direction, alarms are already going off in his head.

The Lord of the Flies points to the doodles in the margins. “Crowley, would you care to exzzplain yourself?”

He might not remember the doodles themselves, but Crowley remembers the alcohol and the Feelings and the raging and the Feelings and the reports and the Feelings. The entire weight of the universe settles somewhere in the pit of his stomach. Immediately his mind thinks of all the ways that Hell will torture him. How everything will turn to absolute shit the moment they extract a confession from him. And how Heaven is undoubtedly going to kill Aziraphale for consorting with a Demon and for going halfsies on the Good and Bad Deeds that should have been handled by their respective sides.

This is bad, and he knows it. His brain is already in overdrive trying to come up with an excuse.

His mouth beats his brain to it. "It's my initials," he says.

Beelzebub stares at him. Only the flies buzzing around her move. "What?"

Crowley charges on before he can second-guess himself. "Initials. Human stuff. If you go by just one name they think you're a bit, well, thick. I've been trying out a new alias to blend in better. Those are my new initials."

He doesn't stop to think that perhaps Beelzebub, no other names given, might resent being called "a bit thick." He does briefly wonder why the Lord of the Flies was having this conversation with him when it was clearly the domain of Dagon, the Lord of the Files.

Beelzebub's voice breaks him from his question. Fortunately, she doesn't seem to have picked up on his implied insult. "What doeszzz the A szzztand for?" she demands.

"Anthony."

Crowley hates it immediately, but it's the first name beginning with an A that wasn't Adam (or Aziraphale) he could think of. Just why he thought of Anthony he never could reason out.

“And the T?” Beelzebub inquires further.

Crowley’s mind goes completely blank. He cannot think of a single name beginning with T. “Not a T,” he says instead. “It’s a J.”

He makes a mental note to kick himself later, if he survives this encounter.

Beelzebub squints at the letter. “It'szzz a J,” she repeats. “Really.”

“Yep. It’s a J. Sorry, it’s just that my handwriting is terrible.” He flashes a sheepish grin that absolutely would have worked on Aziraphale.

The other Demon doesn’t so much as crack a smile. “What doeszzz the J szzztand for, then?”

Of course, Crowley can't think of a single name that starts with a J either. (Except for Jesus, of course, and he's not suicidal.) So he says, “It’s just a J really. The first name is really the important bit. Everything else is just for show.”

And then Crowley stands there, wondering just how much holy water they’re going to dissolve him in, for what feels like much longer than the nearly 6000 years he’s spent on Earth, before Beelzebub finally rolls her eyes and dismisses him.

“Keep the reportzzzs neater,” she scolds. “Markszzz in the marginszzz are a szzzign of szzzloppy workmanszzzhip.”

“Right. Of course. Will do.”

Crowley manages not to run out of the office, but barely.

So of course, to keep his cover story intact, Crowley has to make good on his statement. He styles himself as Anthony J. Crowley, signing documents and giving his name to everyone who asks for it. He is obsessive to the point of carelessness, using his name openly when before he would have been more cautious. Soon, everyone knows who Anthony J. Crowley is. Everyone except a certain bookshop-owning Angel, that is. It would take until 1941 for that particular name to come to light.

And to think, he thought bitterly, that he had to make all this effort simply because he'd doodled his initial with his crush’s initial in the margins of a report, and had to lie his ass off to keep from being discovered.

(And no, he never tells Aziraphale. How in Hell’s name would Crowley ever live it down?)

End


End file.
